Father's Day
by Darikiema
Summary: Tony Stark's five most memorable Father's Days. Regression/kid!fic with some swearing


_A/N: So I did intend to write this for Father's Day, since the idea came to me before the holiday. But, obviously, I only just got around to it. I have no excuse. I just hope you al like it._

* * *

Anthony loved his mother and his father. They were great! Mommy was always laughing and Daddy was very smart. He was a very busy man and Momma said to always stay out of his way. That he needs to get what he was working on finished before Tony could go in and look through his lab. That was how Tony learned to build his first circuit board. By watching Daddy when he was working and being really quiet so he didn't get in trouble.

That was what he held behind his back now. The little circuit board that, when you plugged it into the fancy computer that Daddy had made, spelled out the words 'Happy Father's Day, Love Tony'. He had shown Mommy when he had finished it and while Daddy was out so that they could use his computer and she had been so happy. She had given him the biggest smile and then told him he was such a sweet boy. Pat his back and then asked Jarvis for her cocktail. He hadn't seen much of her the rest of the night and Jarvis was the one to put him to bed.

But he had made Mommy smile, that was what mattered.

Now, though, he is waiting patiently for his father to be finished with the most current project he and Uncle Obie are working on. They don't notice him and he starts to worry that they will keep working until it is night time and then he would have to go to bed and wouldn't be able to give him the present he made him before the day was over. And that wouldn't do. Because it was Father's Day and you didn't give them their present the day after.

So he timidly steps forward with a tiny _huff huff_ noise that is supposed to be the polite way to gain someone's attention. Like Jarvis taught him. He wants to bit his lip or toe at the ground when hid daddy finally looks away from the billboard he had been staring at to watch him.

He asks Tony what he wants and it makes him all the more nervous because now Uncle Obie is watching with a strange look that Tony doesn't recognize but it looks sad and it looks _angry_? He hopes Uncle Obie isn't mad at him. He is only four and he just really wants to give his daddy his present before he goes to bed. So he swallows and mumbles out the story the best he can with his head down and his hands twisting and turning around the fragile circuit board without breaking it.

He explains that it is Father's Day and he wanted to do something nice for him because the daycare lady (Ms. Marsha James) said that everyone should think real hard about what they wanted to do for the day. That she had offered to help everyone make a card for their dads but that Tony thought they were dumb and wanted to do something better for his daddy. So he had worked in the lab when his daddy wasn't there so he would stay out of his way and he had asked Jarvis to help him with the computer part (though he had actually just done it to be nice and give the man a lesson on how the thing worked) and he mumbles that he hopes his father likes the gift.

Uncle Obie has that same look on his face, but it's more defined now and he looks more at Daddy than he does at Tony, so he thinks that maybe Obie is angry at his Daddy. But that doesn't make any sense.

So he brushes the thought of it off and hands over his present. With his face finally looking up at his Daddy and waiting with wide eyes for the man to take the box and open it. It's bright green with a blue ribbon around it. Jarvis had helped him make the box and wrap it in the paper. He had asked his Mommy what color she thought would be good and she had told him to use the green one and stay away from red. Everything red and blue made Daddy sad so they stayed away from it.

His daddy takes the package with a blank face and Tony hopes that he did a good job. He wants to make his daddy happy because his daddy is going off to the big water- _the ocean, Tony. Use your words_ \- and gets very sad when he comes back. So Tony wants to make him feel better now so that he isn't so sad when he does come home.

But Daddy just sets the box aside and returns to the billboard with a _Thank you, Tony. Now, off to bed_ and there is this weight that presses down harshly in Tony's chest. A lump in his throat as he turns away, more than a little stunned. Didn't Daddy want his present?

But he hears Uncle Obie yelling at Daddy about caring more about some Captain than for Tony and he suddenly gets it.

Tony is only four years old, but he is a genius. He built his first circuit board a few days ago and he knows that Mommy shouldn't drink as much as she does. He understand the way a carburetor works within Daddy's truck and he knows why a motorcycle is able to drive with only two wheels instead of four like a car. He sees more of his butler and godfather than he does of his actual father and he knows that Daddy had a good friend die in the war. That he is the man who Daddy searches for in the ocean every year and he gets it now.

He _understands_. Tony is not Daddy's friend, the man that Daddy always talks about, and he is nothing like him.

Tony builds things. He studies Daddy's papers and draws ones of his own. He designs weapons like Daddy does and they all give him this shadowy look in his eyes and he gets it now. As tears finally leak out of his eyes and he ignores Jarvis when asked if there is anything wrong. He knows now, as he gets himself ready for bed- like a man- that Daddy's friend didn't make weapons. He didn't want to build guns or bombs like Daddy did.

Tony is four when he builds his first circuit board. He is four when he figures it all out.

Tony is not Steve Rogers and he is not Captain America. Tony draws missiles and he designs tools of war like his father. Which is not what the great Howard Stark wants.

Tony is not was his father wants him to be.

(Tony doesn't know how Howard drinks himself into a stupor as the message of _Happy Father's Day, Love Tony_ blinks in front of him. Tony doesn't know about the threats that he reads between the lines of Shield's leaders and enemies watching Tony with far too much interest to be safe. Tony will never know that Howard cries himself to sleep because he has to ostracize his own, wonderful, darling baby boy just to keep him safe. Tony will never hear _I love you_ come from Howard's lips because, even at the age of four, Howard is failing to keep his tiny, innocent son safe from the sharks that lurk behind his father. Tony won't wake up in the middle of the night to find Howard careening the Captain America art across the room because it's _all his fault_ that his son can't grow up safe and normal.

But, maybe, he'll figure it out one day. Someday.)

* * *

Tony is six and knows that his father doesn't care about Father's Day. It's a stupid and silly holiday that people created so they could have something else to celebrate like idiots. It was another bank holiday and another reason to ignore society beyond their money.

Not that he thought his father might deserve any recognition in such regards anyway. He hadn't done a thing for the day in the two years since he had figured everything out.

Hell, Tony wouldn't have even known what day it was if his mother hadn't decided to barge into his room and announce the holiday. So now he was sitting here in this stupid and fancy restaurant, wearing a tux and watching the clock on his wrist in the hopes that he could glare it into going faster. He wasn't sure if it was sillier to be wearing a tux on _Father's Day_ or that they were out celebrating it in the first place.

He just wanted to go back to building his engine and making it work. He just wanted to finish the damned car his father hated and wanted nothing more to do with so it would run and drive him and Jarvis right out of here. Out of this dumb city and this messed up life. He's a lot smarter now than he was two years ago. He didn't make a big deal about his accomplishments to his father because it wasn't something that ever went over well. His father never outright ignored him, but he certainly didn't seek the poor kid out. Didn't offer encouragement and never looked over something that he had built or drawn or _anything_ without criticizing it and silently wishing that Tony was someone else.

Tony wasn't stupid. He knew that his father, his "Daddy", wished that Tony was a certain Steve Rogers. A.k.a. Captain America. That he stood in front of bombs instead of building them. (He's only six, but he's a genius.)

He glared at his watch again before giving up and returning to the food that had been placed before him. Picking at it without putting much of it into his mouth. His mother doesn't notice and his father is ignoring him in light of a conversation with the maitre d about some sort of wine. Tony doesn't care. He just wants out of this restaurant and this tux and back into the grease and oil and dirt. It's what makes him feel real. Even so young he knows how to fake a happy face and he knows how to pretend to be part of that loving and happy family they put up in the face of the press and reporters who would be too nosy. And he knows what makes him happy.

And what makes him happy is to be a dirty little boy who fixes things instead of just digs in the dirt and tears up roses and grass for worms. 1) worms are _not_ worth digging up and 2) how dumb. That's something stupid kids did. And Tony isn't stupid.

He is, however, a boy and a natural mechanic and growing prankster. He wondered if the driver would find the pool of green goo under his seat funny or not.

The thought makes him smile secretly to himself and he manages to stuff a piece of chicken into his mouth without gagging. He continues to think of this, eating slowly while his parents celebrate something none of them care about.

He doesn't realize his father has been watching him with a strange expression on his face until their plates are being taken away and they are asking for the bill to pay. It makes him squirm and look away just long enough to gather himself. He knows how to put on a show for the press, but this is his father- not his Daddy- and he is another entity. Even though he thinks the man never acknowledges him, Tony always feels that he can see right through him and read his brain like that computer he and Obie built. Tony keeps him mouth shut and eyes locked against his father's until the check arrives and they are leaving.

He runs out of the car and for his room to change before it has even finished braking. His mother is yelling at him, but he can't hear her and wouldn't be able to understand beyond the slur if he could. So he runs off with the excuse of being only six and rambunctious. He doesn't see the solid glare his mother is giving his father and the shove to follow the poor kid once they have exited the now parked car.

* * *

Tony is elbow deep in white lithium grease and motor oil when he hears the clatter in the doorway. He is almost finished with his project so he ignores it until his is done fastening the intake back to the manifold. It's been a few hours since he managed to escape the stuffy tux and he was now wearing a giant black shirt that is so old it is gray while some rock band is playing over the radio. He was humming TNT _I'm dynamite!_ before he noticed his audience. He isn't sure how long they had been there before they made the noise. He only has a few more bolts that he needs to attach before the thing is in place and he can put the carburetor back on.

He grunts when the bolt proves too hard to fasten on his own. He oiled it down well, but at the risk of them slipping back out when he started the thing, he couldn't put too much grease on them. Compression and heat would finish tightening them, but he had to get them in there further before that would happen. Big hands are suddenly on his and the ratchet is clicking at a sedated pace. He can feel the solid weight of his father surrounding him, a cage of arms and torso. It makes Tony suck in a breath, but when the ratchet is returned to his hands and nothing further is done or said, he forces himself to breath.

The cologne his father wore to the restaurant has faded to a slight musky, woody scent by now and replaced mostly with sweat and the soft smell of plain soap. His father must have taken a shower after they returned and Tony doesn't blame him. The place they had gone was smoky and his father didn't smoke, minus the occasional cigar with Obie. But even that was rare. So at least the presence smells nice: mingled with the scents of dirt and carb cleaner and gasoline.

They continue to work like that, humming to the rock n' roll on the radio (his father is more partial to the softer stuff and Tony likes AC/DC best). Tony putting things where they go and working until there is a bolt that wont tighten or a part that is too heavy or too awkward to put back the right way. And soon they are working until day break and Tony is smiling smugly at his father and that stupid camera that Jarvis leaves lying around to mark this accomplishment. Howard giving this tiny little smile back at him and running oiled fingers through his floppy brown hair that is more like his mother's than Howard's. It makes the six year old wrinkle his nose and swat at the hand that changes directions and instead goes for the sides in a tickle attack until Tony is nodding off on his father's shoulder.

Tony thinks this may be the best Father's Day he has ever had and wishes that it would happen more often. But Tony isn't stupid and knows it wont, so he takes advantage of this moment and wraps his tiny body into the warm and safe embrace of his Daddy. A mumbled _Happy Father's Day,_ on his lips before he falls asleep.

(Tony doesn't know that Howard selfishly stands there in the garage with his son in his arms for hours. Rocking his little frame back and forth and pretending that it is an everyday occurrence or that he can make it be that way. Tony wont find out for a long time that that camera is Howard's and not Jarvis'. He wont find out how Howard still drinks himself to sleep when he doesn't drown himself in work instead because he is failing his son and himself and maybe even Steve.

Tony doesn't realize that he has slept the best in months in his father's arms until he wakes up when his dad is putting him to bed and wiping him clean of grease and it's eleven in the morning and it was barely five before he dozed off. Not until his Daddy kisses his brow and says go back to sleep and he can't.)

* * *

It was Father's Day.

It's not as though it was a particularly important day to the Stark heir. He had never been that close to his father. He often pretended that it was Obie or Jarvis who was his father and liked to leave little cards for them in their desk or bag.

But this was a special Father's Day. It was the first one since the death of said father in a car accident that had also taken his mother. Which sucked. In that way that hurt more than he was going to admit right now. She was a drunk at the best of times, but she did try to be there for him. Unlike his father. Who was around so little in his teen years, it was a wonder he could even declare biological relation.

Sometimes it felt like he couldn't.

The room is dark and musty and there are only a few keepsakes he can actually think of wanting in the old lab. His father's old lab that hasn't been opened in the near year since his father's death. But it's Father's Day and Tony can't help but wonder about the man. What motivated him to be so… distant. So cold and calculating. He had heard stories from Obie about what a charmer his old man had been in his prime and during the war. What had changed him so much?

Well, aside from Captain Patriotic the Daddy Thief.

Books fill the shelves near busting as they line the north wall and glass windows line the other side. The tables are still laden with his final projects that will never be finished because Tony wont touch them. Never. Well, maybe. They do look pretty cool. What with their shiny sides and their wire hearts. Their metallic shells and their polycarbonate centers. Maybe he could give them a quick look over- for Obie. To see if he could find any use out of the things. Whatever they were.

Dust isn't as thick upon the room as he would have thought but he knows that no one has been inside the room, Because Jarvis is dead and the Stark heir never bothered to hire another butler. He didn't need someone running around and cleaning up his messes. He was man and he could own up to his own mistakes. He's been able to fix an engine since he was five and been building them ever since. He graduated summa de lade from MIT when he was seventeen and plenty smart enough to grasp the concept of a rag and a broom. He is actually quite the clean freak and only pretends to be a slob for the reporters to have something to gossip about. Well that and the obsessive drinking that isn't as much of an act as he would like it to be. Or should be.

That would be the one thing that Jarvis would be truly disappointed in him for.

He shook himself from the thoughts to categorize the contents of the tables and the titles of the books. Some of them are ones that his father wrote; the rest are ones from men like Einstein and A. E. Cummings. And he's bored now, looking though all these stupid old books and this stupid and old office. This lab that was never his and he had never really been welcomed into it. But was too stupid and naive to get it until he was four.

He turned to leave this place forever, but his eye caught the most peculiar thing.

There is a hole in the wall behind the bookshelf that he doesn't remember ever being there. It is in an awkward place within the room, looking for all the world like it had been shoved in so roughly it had about splintered the wood of the surrounding bookshelves. Despite that it pulls away from the others with an oiled ease and doesn't even squeak. That's where the hole is and Tony doesn't even want to explain the sheer excitement that courses through his bones with the knowledge that his father had a hidden safe. _A hidden safe!_ How old fashioned and totally awesome is that?

It's almost stupidly easy to crack and he's actually disappointed to find that out. Except that it only opens up to yet another safe and Tony is instantly confused and perplexed and- ok, he should have seen that coming. And this safe is much harder to crack. There are no digital displays and no keypads to hack and the tumblers move so quietly that he looses his patience and throws the stethoscope across the room. So now he is down to thinking about his father and trying to guess possible combinations to the safe. But that requires knowing something about his father and that is almost laughable. Because Tony does not know a thing about his father besides that he was cold and calculating. He never said _'I love you'_ or even _'Good job, Kiddo'._

So he stares at the safe within a safe within a wall behind a bookshelf. And he feels like throwing his hands up and muttering about cliche's and trying again tomorrow.

Except that he pretty much, kinda-sorta already knows that if he doesn't figure it out today while he is down here, he'll never come back and that the safe will be all but forgotten until the place either burns to the ground or falls apart from disrepair.

So he thinks. Over and over. Going back through his memories and trying to figure out if there was a meaningful thing that his father ever made mention of that could translate to the combination. It couldn't be the MIA date of Captain Rogers (he already tried it- twice) and it wasn't the founding date of Stark Innovations. It wasn't his father's birth date, it wasn't his mother's. (He tried Rogers' as well as Carter's just to be sure) Nor was it Obadiah's or even the year that the first atomic bomb dropped. Not the start of the Shield or any simple math equation that he could connect to. Hell, it wasn't even all zeros or binary for his last name or his marriage date- if he ever even cared about it.

In the end, Tony felt like a right old idiot when the combination turned out to be the very last thing that he had tried and it was totally by morbid fascination.

 _His_ birthday.

Tony wasn't sure how to feel about how that date turned out to be the code that would keep his secrets safe. Or the contents of said safe.

Inside was a box, a book and a photo album. The photo album was old and boxed around the edges. The pages yellowed and frayed where they had been turned and thumbed through repeatedly for years. They began when Howard had been young with pictures of his parents and uncle. With images of Howard and Jarvis as young men and one of Howard with Steve Rogers as they stood next to each other and laughed at some joke lost in time. They changed to images of Howard and Obadiah becoming partners and friends and of his parents meeting and dating and getting married and happy with a child on the way. The thought of Howard looking excited during the pregnancy, with his hands covering his mother's stomach and him with big, protective hands, made him sick.

The last of the album and nearly half of the pages inside it were filled with images of Tony. Of Howard holding a tiny infant in his hands with the biggest, goofiest grin he had ever witnessed upon his father's suave face. Of Maria beaming at the camera and of a toddler with a shock of dark brown hair toddling around and clutching tightly to the knees of a man who looked a little more terrified than when he had been holding a baby but no less loving. Of a sleeping boy nearly the age of four as he drooled little over the table top and of kid working tirelessly on an old beat up engine out in their garage. Of Tony walking the stage for his diploma as a young teen and of him holding out his acceptance letter to MIT. Of a kid who smiled and giggled and made funny faces to Obie and a little boy who wore nice cloths and was polite during parties or a brat who smirked smugly at the camera while covered in engine grease and oil as he showed off his latest restoration. Of tiny Tony holding onto the hem of his mother's skirts as he was led to Stark Innovations for the first time and the same teenager who smiled drunkenly at the last party his father had forced him to attend. A note next to it in the precise and nicer than normal handwriting of his father stating: _Tony's first time drunk. Still can't stop laughing, the goo_ f and the words still feel warm and filled with love.

And Tony feels a welt in his throat for the first time in years and tosses the album aside to examine the book. Stopping short when he finds it to be the signed copy of his first published work. The first copy of the first edition that Tony had specifically requested to sign and give to his father as a sort of _fuck you_ and had instead been placed inside this special place as what? A treasured possession?

He threw it in the same direction as the album and only regrets the action in the back of his mind, because he is now rummaging through the box that is filled with schematics he made as a boy and of circuits he had helped his father make or repaired when the man wasn't looking so he could just help his dad. So he could be of use to his father- his Daddy.

And there are the drawings of a toddler in there and the papers he wrote as a teenager for school and essays he had written for his PhD's. With seashells from when they had gone to Malibu, California and his father had promised to build him a house on the beach. A golf ball with a scar across the surface and a permanent marker telling of how Tony had hit it into the window of the dick he had been trying to schmooze, a smily face drawn there too. A broken paperweight that Tony's mother had given to him on his first Birthday Day that Tony had knocked over and ruined when he was eight out of spite.

Obadiah found him a few days later, the liquor cabinet empty of Howard's prized scotch and the circuit running through a loop on the old computer as Tony lay passed out on the floor. Memorabilia spread round him and the words _Happy Father's Day, Love Tony_ glittering around the room.

(Tony has figured it out because he is a genius and he knows that his father wasn't as cruel as he appeared. He was just awkward and Tony supposes something must have happened to change their dynamic. He just doesn't know what that is, but it doesn't matter because Howard and Maria Stark are dead.)

* * *

Seventy one hours. That's how long Tony Stark had been awake and how he managed to find himself in the park. At noon. Watching other people.

Tony knew the rumors going around the media and the _Avenger's Tower_ about how he stayed awake for days on end because of his genius or his obsessive tendencies and all that crap constantly. But that wasn't actually how it went. Pepper knew the most about his sleeping schedule but he had actually been getting better since the events with the Mandarin and having started to see a psychiatrist. Really, he was getting better. But he was never this bad on a regular basis. Usually he would stay awake until three or four in the morning and crash for four or five hours. Six if he was lucky. But he hardly ever stayed awake for more than forty-eight hours and when he did, it was right after a so called 'mission' with his _team_.

Even after all this time, it didn't feel like a team. Not really.

Granted, Tony could act like an ass and be a bit of an obsessive narcissist with daddy issues while the others had their own slew of problems, but they just weren't getting there as fast as Fury would want. That would take time and with the constant push and pull the director was doing with the agents and the Captain and the prolonged and frequent absence of their resident Thunder God, it was making it difficult to be close to anyone but Bruce. But that was because the poor guy had nowhere else to go and the tower was the closest and most stable thing to a home he'd had since the accident. And Tony was perfectly fine with making him comfortable there- overjoyed really.

They just weren't close enough for this. Not yet and he sure as hell wasn't taking that first step. Not after the fiasco of when Tony had been telling Bruce about the Mandarin mess.

So he sat there, on a park bench and covered in white lithium grease and carb cleaner burning away at his skin. With the sun shining above him and the leaves fluttering soothingly in the warm breeze. It was a good eighty degrees out and the sun was blinding outside of his little, shaded alcove. People passing him by without a second glance and paying no attention to the wandering stare he would trail after them until something else would catch his attention. Usually a beautiful woman or a grizzly man with tattoos up the yin yang. Somebody with character or someone made of plastic. Business suits and jeans. A hand bag or a backpack. Didn't matter.

At least until he spotted them. The two running through the park at breakneck speed (well, for the little kid) while laughing and generally making a ruckus. The father chasing the boy until he tackles him to the ground for a tickle fight. The shock of brown squealing and making a scene, but no one cares. Most people just smile and continue on.

But Tony is transfixed. Unable to look away and shaking with, with… something.

He thinks it might be panic. He's had one too many panic attacks to not know what this feels like. He just isn't sure why he would be panicking at the sight of these two. Why would he panic at seeing a father and son have fun in the park?

Just cause he and his father never did more than fix up that one truck and supplement his schooling after classes together, doesn't mean that other people have relationships with their father's like that. Just look at Thor and his father. They adore each other. And it's no where near as bad as whatever Banner and Barton had with their fathers. He won't even think about that because they are still kinda his friends and that is too private. Especially since he won't divulge that sort of information either.

He doesn't think that Romanoff even knew her father, so she has it the best of them all. Even Steve had known his father, however briefly, and knew enough of him to miss.

Their laughter rings out louder and he is still shaking. He feels the panic in his gut as it twists and turns. Feels it snap and coil and writhe like a beast (or a nuke) until he is standing up and tapping his fingers in a nonsensical motion of typing or playing music. A guitar? Sure. Bile is thick in his throat and he knows he will be sick this time. The pounding in his head is copper dull and red and black and white frame of the scenery around him. Thick lumps in his chest and throat almost make him choke and he determines that, yes, this is a panic attack.

But _why?_

The boy laughs and screams for his daddy to stop. Giggling and bringing back one specific day that he has tried not to let haunt him.

It was like a shock of cold to his system when he suddenly realized what day it was: _Father's Day._ How could he have forgotten? Oh, wait! His father was dead and he had no kids. He was constantly busy and he had no free time outside of the missions and training and the constant repairing and upgrading of suits and weapons for the Avengers. He had never been that close to his father and one father figure was dead and buried for decades and the other had tried to kill him while revealing how little he really cared. No wonder his father hadn't left the company to Obadiah. At least partially.

He almost runs back to the tower and doesn't say anything to the jabs that Barton and Rogers shoot his way. Something about a wolves under his ass or fire chasing him… He doesn't care and just locks the door to his lab in their faces when he says nothing in response. He's sick in the sink and he's reaching for his liquor- Howard's scotch that he never was able to finish. Wet things are trailing down his cheeks and his hands are shaking as he pulls the safe from behind the Ironman painting and from the one that lies behind it.

 _Safe within a safe_ and Tony isn't at all ashamed of how cliche that is.

The box and the book are all still the way it was when he first found it. But he's looking for the circuit and the album. He wants to see them. He needs the reminder that there was more to the upbringing of Anthony Stark than drunk Maria and gentle Jarvis and cold Howard. He needs to see the evidence that his father cared and loved him more than he showed.

He plugs the circuit in and begins flipping through the album. But he's shaking so badly he fears he'll rip the pages and he can't do that. His eyes are blurring so badly he's sure he already has, he just can't see it. Not yet. He knows he will; when he calms down and the lump fades away (or is cried out). Or when the drink forces the metallic rock back into his chest and allows him to think straight. Well, straighter.

He just has to wait.

Soon enough it starts to fade and the shots of scotch that he has already consumed is enough to calm the tides of his shaking. The black and white and sepia colored photos come back into alignment and he can figure out just what is within their white frames. He sees his father with Jarvis and Obadiah. He can see his mother and himself playing in the tub when he is still so small. The bitter taste of bile isn't so choking behind the smooth vapors of alcohol. He skips the picture of Howard and Steve; he doesn't need to see that anyway. (They were chummy in the day and Rogers still looks at Tony and wonders where Howard went so wrong. So he's allowed to ignore the spangly prick.)

A sudden and strange flickering begins flashing from the screen the circuit is connected to. He doesn't recognize the pattern. (He may have passed out a few minutes after watching the text scroll by the only other time he did this) So he didn't know until just this minute there was anything else on it. It makes him a little angry to know that someone touched his father's gift, but stuffs the indignation away for another time. Instead, he watches what he realizes his father had wanted to say to him all those years ago.

 _I'm proud of you. Love, Dad._

He feels sick again, but he feels better than he did before. So he lets Pepper into the garage many hours later and allows her to drag him back to their room. They both ignore the lingering gazes of the silent team and company as they trudge up the stairs to their bedroom. No doubt Barton and Rogers had gone tattle-telling to Pepper and anyone else who would listen when he had shut them out. He knows that they camped out in his kitchen to bombard him when he finally reemerged. But he's glad that they say nothing and he's thankful that there is scotch on his breath. Even though it isn't enough to do more than give him a buzz and calm the shaking of his hands, the others don't have to know that. So they don't have to know that the pale and sick pallor, with the slurred words and the mumbled apologies to Pepper are not because he got rip roaring drunk in the middle of the day.

Pepper- sweet, wonderful, _beloved_ Pepper- stays with him through the rest of the day and asks JARVIS to _Please lock the garage_ before the team can get in there and look through his stuff. It makes Tony giggle with the thought that they had tried- and failed- to gain access to the workspace after Pepper had dragged his sorry ass past. Well, aside from Bruce, JARVIS assures. The good doctor had requested that the others respect his privacy and stayed back in the kitchen when they ignored him.

It's nice to know that they care. Even if their way of showing it is kind of fucked up and definitely not ok. But it's still evidence and he can wave it in Natasha's face and she wont be able to disprove it.

But he pretends not to know and just grunts when they ask him what had troubled him the day before. Downing a green drink and going back to his workshop to clean up the mess and drive right back into the most recent project of his. Not caring to put the circuit board immediately away or resist thumbing through the album once before putting it carefully back in it's safe.

(Tony understands now. He's in his thirties- not _quite_ forty yet- and he's still a genius. He's had his problems and he's made mistakes. But he thinks that he's made up for some of them and maybe one or two of his father's. He gets, now that he works with Shield and Fury, why his father had been so distant. He realizes now that he has worked so closely with Steve Rogers and spat it out with him on a few occasions, his father didn't care that he wasn't Captain Freaking America. His father- His _Daddy_ \- wanted him to just be happy but that had been taken away from them when Tony proved to be so smart and Howard made the choice to keep him behind closed doors the best he could. Tony gets now, looking back, that maybe Howard hadn't made the best choice, but he appreciates it anyway.

Maybe, he might even forgive him one day.)

* * *

The bed is bouncing and is making it increasingly difficult to get any more sleep. He hears a grunt of annoyance and frustration before the mattress resumes it's increasingly annoying bouncing.

Tony groans.

"Daddy!" he hears and there is a warm chuckle from beyond the edge of the bed where it is bouncing and bouncing and _bouncing_. So Tony knows that Pepper is watching with that motherly pride and amusement only she can get from watching their son jump on the bed to wake him. He want's to roll his eyes, but is too busy attacking the kid and going for the sides to tickle the boy into a fit of gasping giggles and laughing tears. And Tony feels pretty good with himself for that. Because, not even eight months ago, this little boy (former Avenger, Bruce Banner) had been scared and crying and basically trying to hide from everyone and everything as he changed back and forth between child and Mini-Hulk. It was as heartbreaking to watch as it was to find out that Tony really didn't know how to change the poor boy back into the man he had once been. Or to find out the sheer magnitude of the abuse and neglect he had suffered even at the age of six.

But, Bruce is a genius and he has figured out that Tony and Pepper mean it when they say they love him and want him to be their child. He has also figured out that Tony is the best father a person could ask for because he cares and he fights for what is right. Which is Bruce and Pepper and the Avengers. He fights to be with his son instead of diving into work and he fights to keep the sharks who want the Hulk for their own away so that Bruce never has to fear being taken away.

Bruce is smarter than Tony and Howard ever were and has accepted the poor man into his heart far easier than they would have thought.

Tony and Pepper were each happy to let that happen. No matter how much they could miss Dr. Banner at times. Because this Bruce has a chance to grow up happy and loved and learn to control the gift that is the Hulk. Which they remind him of every time he looses control or catches sight of a flicker that will send him back to the darker days that were his life with his biological father. But they are confident that the attacks will subside with time and love.

"Daddy!" Bruce is whining through the gasps of laughter. Tony obliges and lessens the tickling to a soft touch along the boy's hairline until he is breathing. The laughter brings a rush of color to his still too thin cheeks and makes his eyes glitter warmly. His tiny teeth are present in the accompanying grin while his small hands find Tony's beard and tug. It makes the man roll his eyes.

"Guess what day it is!" the boy cries, biting his lip with anticipation and- is that _glee?_

"Um," he stutters turing to look at the woman who wont say yes to being his wife until he gives her a ring. "Tuesday?"

"No!" Bruce is giggling. Shaking his head at how silly his daddy is.

"Oh no! You're right. It's Saturday. Right?" he asks, narrowing his eyes in question. Mock befuddlement.

"No! Sunday. That's it," he proclaimed when Pepper bit her lips and tried not to smile and Bruce just kept giggling. Shaking his head and pushing his father's hands away from the exposed skin on his tummy. Tony is as put out as he pretends to be while he tries to remember if there was something important about today. He doesn't think there was. No one's birthday is today and there are no important anniversaries that pertain to himself and his little family.

At least, not that _he_ knows of. He glances back at Pepper and she is giving him that _you can't be seriou_ s look that means he forgot and she is trying not to laugh or be exasperated with him. Which means that there was something important and it really is going to bite him in the ass if he can't remember or if he has to ask FRIDAY for help.

He worries his lip and casts a beseeching look at Pepper as he tickles the soft flesh beneath his fingers.

'It's Father's Day,' she mouths and it feels like a bucket of ice is dumped on his brain and it flat out short circuits. _Why was that important again?_

Bruce has managed to shove the engineer's hands away and sit up on his knees. Tony is tangled in the blankets and leaning on one hand over him while Pepper mirrors his position not far off. They are each watching the tiny child now. One with warmth; the other just blankly.

"Momma Pepper and I made pancakes for breakfast. Come on!" he crows, jumping off the bed and running out to the kitchen. It's much to Pepper's credit that she doesn't flinch when still he calls her that while so willing to call Tony just Daddy. But he can see the painful flicker there and is drawn to it like a moth. Brushing warm lips and soft whiskers along her jaw and cheek. A silent apology to something that is neither of their fault, but he still feels guilty.

"Breakfast," she whispers into his mustache and he just wants to lick away the rebuttal and press her whole bodily into the mattress the way he once used to. But they can hear the muffled steps of small feet on the carpet and she is trying not to smile ridiculously at him. _Mood killer._

"You coming?"

"Yep," Stark declares, pulling himself away from Pepper and out of the tangled mass of sheets. Carefully being steered out of the room with his eyes covered and his hands in his son's.

He is greeted with a spread that could feed the entire team. Which is not surprising because Tony is really, extra sure that Bruce invited everyone up for the meal and is just waiting on them to arrive before they begin. It makes him chuckle and praise the kid for being so thoughtful.

It's when they are sitting around the table and laughing at some ridiculous story that Thor is telling them that Tony leans back and realizes just how lucky he is to have these people as his friends and this kid as his. _His_. It's a novel concept and it still catches him off guard. It makes him wonder if this is how his own father felt and if this is what it felt like when Tony had done something for him on this holiday. He didn't do much after he was seven (he gave it one more shot after he was six) but he knew that his father appreciated everything he had done and was proud of him. Even if he had never shown it or even told him he was loved.

"You ok, Tony?" Steve asks him. It jolts him out of the stupor he's found himself in and he has to clear his throat before he can speak.

"Yeah, sorry."

He can see that they don't believe him. But he can't really think of a way to put them at ease, so he starts up a conversation with his son.

 _His son._

And he tries not to feel guilty about forgetting the holiday. But, since he had remembered Mother's Day before Pepper, he doesn't think it's so bad. He just feels bad about the bitter feelings he has towards this day.

* * *

"Daddy," Bruce is mumbling as he is lifted from the couch. He had fallen asleep as they were watching a movie about some penguins and Tony can't really care to remember what it was about. He was too busy watching Bruce laugh and dance with Clint and his kids to the music. He was also busy watching Pepper smile softly and with that warm expression that made his heart flutter with pride and admiration and _love_. That and dancing with her to the end credits.

But now Bruce is asleep and Clint and Laura have already taken their kids down to their suite with the other Avengers have following their example. Which leaves the three of them to ready themselves for bed.

The walk to the bedroom that their son sleeps in takes longer as Tony treads soft and carefully so that he won't wake the kid. Pepper is at his back and she sweeps errant curls away from the forehead, occasionally smoothing it back along his scalp. Pajamas of green and purple lie on the bed for when he was getting ready for the day; the bathroom light is on but Tony doesn't think his teeth will be hurt if he doesn't brush them just this once. He hadn't been eating anything too sweet and Tony has gone weeks with only alcohol is his stomach and mouth and his teeth are mostly fine.

Ok, so that wasn't a good example. But it's all he's got since his father never cared if he had a toothbrush or not and actually stayed up late into the night with him to teach him all the things that the stupid schools couldn't wrap their heads around, let alone getting around to teaching him.

Tony would make sure to send Bruce to a public school and homeschool him besides because Bruce is too smart for the educational system but he deserves to find friends and be around kids his own age. No one has to know that the kid is a Stark.

 _That_ would be kept secret.

"Mommy," the boy whispers, and Tony knows by the way he blinks sluggishly at Pepper (who looks nothing like Banner's mother) that he means the redhead. It makes Tony warm to see the scene as she presses a kiss to his cheek and his forehead for good measure. He's facing away, putting cloths away in the hamper, but he can see it in the mirror.

"Good Night, Sweetheart."

"G'night," he mumbles, rubbing one eye and stretching his legs.

"Good night, Bud," Tony whispers as he gives his own kiss to the wild, brown hair.

"Night, Daddy. Happy Father's Day." Tony can't help smile and ruffle those curls with his big hand. Quickly shoving aside how he remembers his own father's hands running through his hair. Covered in grease and rough from callouses. Tony's are rough, but they are at least clean. This time.

"Sleep tight," he says from the doorway and reaches to flick the light off.

"Wait!" Bruce shouts, jolting from sleep and outright flying off the bed. Pepper is a little further down the hallway, but she turns at the cry. She returns and has this soft smile stretched over her beautiful lips. Tony, meanwhile, just stares at them with a confused line between his brows and a hesitant slant on his mouth. Bruce is shuffling around in his dresser and Pepper is petting his shoulder with that warm look in her eyes as she watches fondly. It's probably the most ridiculous scenario he's been in since adopting the younger version of his best friend but it seems to be the common theme of the day. Or his life.

At least until Bruce pulls out a package from his sock drawer. Wrapped in green and tied with a purple ribbon. It's long and no bigger than his cell phone but thicker than a hard drive. The kid draws up close to the engineer and holds the box with eager eyes. Lip between his teeth and he's turning to and fro as he waits for Tony to take the present. Wide, brown eyes looking up at him with such love and hope that Tony is instantly transported back to when he is four years old and hesitantly holding a box out for his own father. Wrapped in green and tied in purple ribbon (or was it blue?).

Tony realizes that he is holding his breath the same time he notices the quake in his hands and fingers: as he reaches out to take the gift from his son to open it.

The paper tears away easily once the ribbon is removed. Revealing a black swede box that has a hinge on one side and something that clinks softly when he moves it. He knows his breathing is ragged and that he is hesitating to open the box. It isn't a circuit board inside that writes _I love you_ but it might as well be with the way that Bruce stares up at him with so much anticipation and sincere _hope_.

It isn't until he finally takes the plunge and just opens the fucking thing that the tears well and he releases another held breath. A huff of surprised laughter before he swallows the knot in his chest. He's smiling past the tears that are falling despite himself because inside that box is a watch. A custom made one that has a picture of the three of them as it's face. Smiling up at him and happy. With such warmth. Such love.

He almost sobs as he snatches the child from the floor and presses his face to dark brown curls. Pulling away only to press his lips to Bruce's forehead and see the happy tears of his son. He feels terrible for making his boy cry, but he can't help it. He is just so damned _happy_. Something that he hasn't been in a long time.

"Thank you," he breaths and when Bruce wishes him a happy Father's Day, he feels like he can really believe it. Like he deserves it and already had one. The best one in his life.

(Tony is a father now and the day is better than it used to be, but he can't forget his own father on a day like this. He understands the choices that Howard made to keep him safe when he was a child, he's been faced with similar, but he doesn't agree with them.

But Tony forgives him now. He forgives his father and shares a few beers with Steve on the anniversary and doesn't pretend to not care.

Because he forgives his Daddy.)


End file.
